Obama Dog & Pony Show on the Fiscal Cliff

Nov 9, 2012

RUSH: Yes, yes, I know Obama’s got a dog and pony show going, and we’re rolling on it. I wasn’t gonna JIP this because I don’t know what it is. He’s addressing the fiscal cliff but I can tell you it’s a campaign appearance, because there’s a crowd of people on risers behind him, and they apparently represent every faction of America. Yeah, middle class “wallpaper,” you have a rabbi, you have a priest, you have a pregnant woman, a single woman, a married woman, you probably got a couple gay people in there, got some blacks. I mean, the whole beautiful, wonderful mosaic is represented there in 15 or 20 people, and they are standing behind Obama and he’s talking about the deficit and how we gotta reduce the deficit in a balanced and responsible way, which we know what he means when he says that.

Did he say he wants to raise taxes on people over, what is it, 250? That’s breaking news? That’s not breaking news. That’s been news. He’s wanted to do that for four years. Okay. He wants to raise taxes on people who make over $250,000 a year. But everybody’s taxes are going to go up if the Bush tax cuts expire, or the Bush tax rates expire.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay. Here’s all you need to know from what Obama said. He said, “I’m open to compromise. I’m open to new ideas, but I refuse to accept any approach that isn’t balanced.” In other words, I’m all for compromising as long as we do it my way. This is a replay. This is exactly the kind of stuff he said after the 2010 elections and after he was elected in 2008. It’s the exact stuff he said. (imitating Obama) “I’m open to new ideas. Anybody can come up here, I’ll listen to anybody.” So Paul Ryan showed up with all kinds of wonderful new ideas on health care, and Obama shut him down with a couple evil stares. He doesn’t mean any of this.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let’s go to some sound bites. Obama spoke about the economy and the deficit, and he had a wallpaper of America standing behind him. He put together a bunch of people, 11 or 12 people that in the camera view represented virtually every type of person you can have in this country. That was the optics. And we’ve got four sound bites. Here’s the first.

OBAMA: I’ve invited leaders of both parties to the White House next week so we can start to build consensus around the challenges that we can only solve together. And I also intend to bring in business and labor and civic leaders from all across the country here to Washington to get their ideas and input as well. Our top priority has to be jobs and growth.

RUSH: All right. I mean, how could we oppose that? That’s absolutely wonderful. That’s so cool, the president’s on the case. Thank God. Really, thank God for Obama. Oh, man, both parties build a consensus, business and labor and civic leaders and get their ideas and input, top priority, jobs and growth. All right. That’s what we need. Except we’ve done all this before. I’d like to go back and find the number of Obama appearances where he has said exactly this in just the first year of his first term. We’ve had job summits, honestly, we’ve had New York Times columnists participating in two-hour jobs workshops at the White House. We’ve had environmental summits. We’ve had members of Congress, both parties, come up and talk about health care.

Where did that get us? What happened there? This is the same stuff, the same claptrap. It’s nothing but the same rhetoric, and he doesn’t mean a word. Well, he might mean that he’s gonna bring these people together, but it doesn’t matter what any of them say, he’s gonna do it his way, which is fine. The problem here is this is all a bunch of fake rigmarole. None of this is gonna matter. All those people being brought up there is nothing but a photo-op. Am I not being bipartisan with that? So I’m hurting the Republican Party? Yeah, I’m hurting the Republican Party with that. Yeah, I’m getting in the way of outreach. Okay. All right. Let’s listen to the next sound bite.

OBAMA: I’m open to compromise. I’m open to new ideas.

RUSH: Wow!

OBAMA: But I refuse to accept any approach that isn’t balanced.

RUSH: Yeah, see? That’s right.

OBAMA: I’m not gonna ask students and seniors and middle-class families to pay down the entire deficit while people like me making over $250,000 aren’t asked to pay a dime more in taxes.

CROWD: (applause)

OBAMA: I’m not gonna do that.

RUSH: Well, there you go. What’s wrong with that? That’s exactly what’s called for. I can support the president on that. I can reach out, I can join the president in this. Is that how we’re supposed to react? Okay. He’s been there and done this before, too. He said the exact words before I don’t know how many economic meetings. “I’m open to compromise. I’m open to new ideas. I’ll listen to anybody. But I’m not gonna accept any approach that isn’t balanced.” What does that mean? Meaning, I’m not doing it anybody else’s way. I’m not gonna ask students and seniors and middle-class families to pay down the entire deficit. Well, nobody is. See, the dirty little secret is that while he’s telling everybody that only people over a quarter of a million are gonna have their taxes raised or have their costs of living go up, it’s gonna be everybody. So far, all we’ve heard is BS. It’s all this is. Here’s the next one.

OBAMA: I was encouraged to hear Speaker Boehner agree that tax revenue has to be part of this equation.

OBAMA: I was encouraged to hear Speaker Boehner agree that tax revenue has to be part of this equation. So I look forward to hearing his ideas when I see him next week. Let’s extend the middle-class tax cuts right now. Let’s do that right now.

CROWD: (applause)

OBAMA: That one step, that one step would give millions of families, 98% of Americans and 97% of small businesses the certainty that they need going into the new year. All we need is action from the House. And I’ve got the pen ready to sign the bill right away.

RUSH: You know, he doesn’t even sound into this. He’s so bored. This is over and over, this simple repetition. Folks, I don’t even want to waste my time parsing this stuff. Really what I ought to do here is go through — I’ve got five pages of companies announcing layoffs because he was reelected. I mean that’s the real news. Five pages of companies large and small announcing layoffs, large and small because he was reelected. And I don’t care whatever tax cut thing he’s talking about here, middle-class tax cut, there’s no tax cut for small businesses who use the personal form 1040 to file. If they are sub S’s, sub-S corps and they use their personal income tax form to file the business tax, there’s no tax cut for them, I don’t care what he does. Their taxes are going up. They know it.

Every business in this country is facing increased taxes, if not just income, Obamacare taxes. We have a genuine Taxmageddon hitting in January. That’s what all this fiscal cliff stuff is talking about. But Abbott Labs, 700 layoffs. Covidien, 595 layoffs. Kinetic Concepts, 427 layoffs. St. Jude Medical, 300 layoffs. Medtronic, 1,000 jobs. Boston Scientific, 12 to 1,400 jobs. Welch Allyn, the company that manufactures medical diagnostic equipment, central New York, 275 employees. That’s 10% of their workforce. Dana Holding Corporation, global auto parts company in Ohio, warned their employees of potential layoffs if Obama was reelected. We’re looking at, I don’t know, their workforce is 25,500 worldwide. I think they’re looking at 10%. That’s just one page.

Westinghouse, Research in Motion, RIM, Boeing, US Cellular, Commerce Bank, Iberia, ING, Bristol-Myers, CVPH Medical Center, Caterpillar, Lightyear, Hawker Beechcraft, all of these companies, Groupon, lay off 80 people. Groupon, a high-tech outfit. Five pages of this. Now, he can sit there all day long and talk about all of these middle-class tax cuts that he’s talking about, but nobody out there believes it.

Here’s his assessment of the election.

OBAMA: On Tuesday they said loud and clear that they won’t tolerate dysfunction. They won’t tolerate politicians who view compromise as a dirty word. Not when so many Americans are still out of work. Not when so many families and small business owners are still struggling to pay the bills. What the American people are looking for is cooperation, they’re looking for consensus.

RUSH: So what he means there is the Americans are looking for the Republicans to just get out of the way and let him do what he wants to do. That’s what the election meant.